


All Hail

by Ecanus



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Gen, King Michael, Mad King Ryan, king AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 06:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2377841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ecanus/pseuds/Ecanus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You survive. You rule the underworld with a skeletal fist, wild eyes, and a scepter forged from the gold of fallen Pigmen’s swords. There is only one thing they succeeded in doing when they exiled you.</p><p>They made the Mad King immortal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Hail

**Author's Note:**

> (An old fic about King Ryan's first return. Some of my story ideas have changed regarding this but I thought I'd post it anyway.)

They thought they would be rid of you.

They thought death was too good a fate for the terrors you had committed. They do not give you death. They give you exile. They throw you into the pits of the Nether from which no man has ever returned. Few have ever deserved a punishment such as this. It takes tremendous effort and risk to simply open the gates to this wretched place. You take it as a compliment.

They thought the heat would engulf you, the creatures would devour the burnt flesh remaining on your corpse-like body, alive until they breach your skull and their rotting maws penetrate your psychotic brain, shutting you down. And you would continue each day reviving in that hell only to be tortured and eaten alive once more.

But you don’t. You survive. You rule the underworld with a skeletal fist, wild eyes, and a scepter forged from the gold of fallen Pigmen’s swords.

There is only one thing they succeeded in doing when they exiled you.

They made the Mad King immortal.

One day you make it back to the Overworld. You claw your way up, find the gates. Emerge like an undead being crawling from its grave. There is no one there to see when you return. Be confused, suspicious. Leave the gates open.

Move through the darkness swathing the Kingdom in night until you manage—almost too easily—to slither into the Throne room. The Great Hall, arching four stories high and nearly twice as long, is nearly empty. If breathing was still a luxury you could manage, you’re sure you would hear its echo.

Your eyes lock on to the man on the throne. Your successor. The new King. One look at him—one look at the brilliant blue of his diamond-forged sword sheathed proudly at his hip, the brown curls of hair that frame his smiling face—is telling enough about why there is such a lack of guard or security. A Righteous King. Brave. Trusting.

Ignorant. Egotist. Naive.

Your grin is wicked.

You watch him from the shadows for a time. Watch how he speaks to his subjects. Watch how he reaches instinctively for his sword at the mention of conflict before he gives orders. Watch how he looks at his lowly Jester—a stupid looking boy with boots of gold—with an unmistakable glint of respect in his eyes.

He is not a man meant to lead. He is meant to serve.

You will show him.

Show him. You approach him one evening, the skies red like blood as the Jester shuts the great doors behind him. Approach him with a menacing whisper and realize you have not heard the guttural creak of your heat-laced vocal chords in years aside from maddening chuckles.

Feel his sword rend the flesh of your shoulder and, Mad King, all you can do is smile wide with sick glee as horror drains his pupils into pinpoints. You do not so much as flinch.

You remove the offending blade with your fingers. Your grin falls. Madness crawls along your skin, encroaches like maggots in the rotten hole in your cheek.

He knows who you are—your legend, at least. Briefly take pride in knowing of your scar on the world before telling him, calm and slow, about the army you have assembled. Tell him how it could collapse his Kingdom in one sunset. Tell him he would’t want his loving citizens to come to harm, would he? Wouldn’t want that Jester to suffer, would he?

Let the threat penetrate his valiance. You leave the hall to let it sink in, but you know you already have the Righteous King in the palm of your hand.

Watch as he crumbles under the threat and the blackmail. Watch plea make his gaze unsure, angry, worried. Come to him and order him to do things he would never do and he follows, because he knows despite his pride that he cannot defeat a man that has survived Hell, let alone his army. Make the Kingdom wonder what has become of its Righteous Lord.

And soon it is not the blackmail leading him.

Soon he warps in your fingertips, crushed in your hold until you have molded him to your whim. He becomes a willing puppet rather than a slave to your threats.

He becomes your servant.

Relish in it all culminating, until you find yourself sitting on his throne—your throne—leaning back with your elbow on the arm rest and your rotting knuckles against your cheek. He stands at the foot of the brilliant steps, stone-like, mouth set in a thin line as though it is carved into the face of a statue.

He holds the hilt of his legendary diamond sword limply in his grasp, the tip of the blade resting on the floor, stained red. His other hand is occupied by a muss of copper-blonde hair. The stump of the decapitated head’s throat drips gore into the carpet. The Jester’s face is frozen in horror although—if not for the terrific context—the paralyzed gape can be mistaken for a show of glee.

"Feels good, does it not?"

He looks at you. He looks at you and you see enough fire in his eyes to fuel the grin that spreads triumphantly across your cheeks.

"It does, my King."


End file.
